Clayton Young|@smartguy_92
Dalla Boruff, a junior nursing student at IU, worked a nasal swabbing table during the first day of on-arrival testing for Spring 2021 semester at Garrett Fieldhouse at IU Bloomington on Saturday, Jan. 30, 2021. Photo Credit: Chris Howell
Bloomington- Mayor John Hamilton urges citizens to mask up amid variant surge, according to a community-wide update published on January 24.
The City of Bloomington released a ‘COVID 19 Community Update’ providing new information on the continuing coronavirus pandemic, including the need for masking up, getting vaccinated, and staying home if you’re feeling sick.
“We're all having really high case numbers,” the mayor said, “The hospitals are overwhelmed, it's as bad as it's ever been. . . we've had a record week last week in terms of those testing positive.”
According to the city of Bloomington’s website, Monroe County has peaked at 7,041 cases during the month of January. The Indiana State Department of Health is responsible for reporting COVID-19 cases to the Center for Disease Control, according to Kathy Hewett, Bloomington’s Public Information Officer.
However, cases are on a downward slope, according to the New York Times. It is unclear if the trend will continue. To combat remaining cases thousands of government-issue N95 masks arrived in Bloomington Kroger stores Monday evening, but were gone shortly after, The Herald-Times reports.
Indiana University students and staff can receive either N95 or KN95 masks on a weekly basis at these distribution areas.
The campus has required everyone associated with IU to be fully vaccinated but does not require boosters. According to the university’s dashboard, 95% of everyone at IU Bloomington is vaccinated.
Monroe County residents who are fully vaccinated make up about 50% of the total population of the county. Meanwhile, experts at Yale Medicine estimate a total vaccination rate of 85%, although it’s hard to predict a concrete number due to the uncertainty of mutations.
“If we continue to let this pandemic run wild... there is a probability that there will eventually be a variant against which the vaccines will be less effective,” said Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health.
Bloomington’s Health Board couldn’t be reached to comment
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